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The opposition conservative Jobbik party has accused ruling Fidesz of “building a virtual reality” by “fearmongering over immigration and terrorism” in its European parliamentary election campaign while the government had let 86,000 migrants into Hungary over the past three years.

Addressing a press conference, lawmaker Ádám Mirkóczki, the head of parliament’s national security committee, said the stakes of the May 26 election were starting to be about “how many people are willing to swallow the orange pill”, referring to Fidesz’s colour. He said

those who did “can continue to live in fear in this virtual reality, waiting for the government to protect them from danger”.

Mirkóczki said Jobbik considered the tactics of “fearmongering with fake news, lies and distortions” to be “just as serious an attack on society” as the failure to guarantee the safety of the Hungarian people.

He criticised a recent campaign video released by Fidesz, saying there were multiple statements in the video that did not correspond with information recently shared with the national security committee by Hungary’s intelligence services and the Counter Terrorism Centre (TEK).

Mirkóczki said that based on intelligence information shared at a national security briefing in late March, the video’s claims that a Syrian terrorist suspect arrested in Hungary last year had been in the possession of a prepaid bank card and that Hungary had been his intended destination, were untrue.

The Jobbik MP said he will ask the interior ministry “whether the authorities had misled the national security committee” about the case of the terrorist suspect. He said if it turned out that the intelligence services had told the truth, Fidesz would have to retract the video and apologise to the Hungarian people.